Ties that Bind
by Sorceress Fantasia
Summary: Lavi always insisted on buying him hair ties every time he went away on a mission, but Kanda doesn’t see the point of owning a drawer full of the things when he only had this much hair. LxK


Title: Ties that Bind

Author: Sorceress Fantasia

Pairings: Lavi/Kanda

Warnings: Fluff, sap, romance

Word count: 1394

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: I do not own D. Gray-Man and any of its characters.

Summary: Lavi always insisted on buying him hair ties every time he went away on a mission, but Kanda doesn't see the point of owning a drawer full of the things when he only had this much hair.

* * *

Kanda cared little for worldly possessions.

He had come into this world with nothing but himself, and he'd always deemed that he would leave the world without anything else too. It was just the way it should be, he'd always thought. And there was no point in investing so much emotion and effort into protecting any possessions he had because there was simply no way he could bring them to the next life, if there was indeed one anyway.

His room inside the Black Order Headquarters reflected his belief.

Apart from a wardrobe that was barely half-filled with clothes (and half of those were his bulky exorcist coats), a meticulously made bed, a small nightstand for his lotus, there was very little else inside. As for Mugen, the weapon was always with Kanda, so it couldn't be said to be part of the room décor.

Kanda really didn't care too much for worldly possessions.

Now, if only he could get Lavi to see his point of view too.

"Stop buying me hair ties every time you leave the headquarters, Lavi," he said, crossing his arms as he sat on his bed, which was the only place he could sit on apart from the floor. He twitched when he noticed how dirty it was; he'd really been out on missions far too often lately… Though Kanda didn't care much for material items, he had a feeling it might still be a good idea to actually get a chair. Yeah, and the cafeteria had a new batch of chairs recently. Nobody was going to notice one missing chair.

He was not going to sit on the floor anytime soon, unlike Lavi who seemed to feel no different about sitting cross-legged on the dusty floor

"Eh? But hair ties are useful, aren't they? Especially since you have such long hair," Lavi replied absently, far too engrossed in arranging a whole drawer's worth of the accessory according to their colour, style and length.

"I only have this much hair. One hair tie is enough," Kanda grumbled, feeling his ire rise when he noticed the other had actually gotten him at least 7 pink hair ties. Sure, those 7 weren't all the same – some were plain neon pink, some baby pink, some had blue stripes running across it horizontally, and others came in polka dots – but the very idea of having 7 offending pink hair ties in his room was annoying.

If Lavi thought for the slightest moment that he would ever let those things get near his hair and still claimed that he knew Kanda well, then he was way, way off the mark. Either that, or he was delusional.

Just when he was about to get Lavi to throw those out of the pile and preferably out of his room, his eyes fell onto the assortment of brushes and combs lying behind Lavi's crossed legs on the floor and he twitched.

"And just one comb is enough," Kanda added, before the other decided to start a comb and hair brush museum in his room and buy him a new one every time he left on a mission, which was the current norm in the case of hair ties.

The whole thing had started out innocently enough.

A few months ago, on a joint mission with Lavi, Kanda's hair tie had snapped in the midst of battle and given him quite a fair amount of trouble. It wasn't easy to fight Akuma and prevent his hair from being chopped off at the same time, after all.

Almost immediately after the battle, Lavi had insisted on dragging Kanda into a nearby market and purchase new hair ties. One of every type the store had, he'd said, to test out which one suited Kanda the best and the others for backup, just in case it snapped again.

A stern refusal was already on his lips, but Lavi had chosen that exact moment to turn back to him from the basket of hair ties and flashed a mega-watt smile that was enough to make the old shopkeeper coo and a group of female customers swoon.

"Yuu, this white hair tie is going to look gorgeous on your hair!"

And that was that. As he bit on his bottom lip and ignored the old shopkeeper's comment that "they made such a cute couple" when Lavi insisted on doing his hair right there with the new hair tie, he told himself:

_This is going to be the only time I indulge the rabbit._

That, of course, did not work, judging by the kiss Lavi stole as they left the store and the fact that Lavi kept their fingers entwined all the way back to their shared hotel room and then some.

Since then, whenever Lavi went out on missions, he'd buy a new hair tie for Kanda. One in every town he visited and passed by, claiming that they acted as souvenirs and evidence of how much Kanda was on his mind. Kanda had nearly opened him a new one for saying that while they were in the cafeteria with everyone else around them, at least half of them obviously eavesdropping. No one eating would hold their utensils in mid-air for ten minutes running with the spaghetti slipping off, despite what Allen said.

Sometimes Lavi's purchases extended to hair brushes and combs – a huge tooth comb for wet hair, a soft-bristled brush for your daily use, and a finer tooth comb for you to take along when you go out, Yuu! – but usually it was hair ties and ribbons. Even though that first white hair tie had been bought for good reason, Lavi seemed to need no further reason other than the thrill of buying to get the recent ones he did.

Sometimes Kanda thought his boyfriend had a severe case of hair fetish.

Looking up from the floor where he was seated and surrounded by small boxes of hair ties and brushes, Lavi smiled at Kanda's unspoken accusation.

"But Yuu, you don't wear jewelry and you don't like impractical things. Hair products are the only things I can get you based on those two criteria," Lavi explained patiently.

"But I don't need so many of them!" Kanda waved a hand across the floor. It was currently so littered by all the hair products that Lavi had bought for him that it seemed almost like an obstacle course of sorts.

Lavi sighed exasperatedly, but Kanda could see the twinkle in his emerald eye as jubilant and bright as ever. And while that grin on the other's lips always signaled the advent of bad idea, it did not keep the indignant squawk from escaping his throat when Lavi suddenly launched himself onto his bed.

"Silly Yuu."

The comment was nearly enough to get Kanda to shove his wayward boyfriend off the bed, but before he could even think of that, Lavi had already caught both his arms with a force strong enough to restrain and yet soft enough to not bruise.

"Silly Yuu," he repeated, "you should know by now that all these hair ties and hair brushes are just complimentary gifts on the house. The real gift I've been giving you all this while…"

Kanda swallowed, eyes blinking almost owlishly when Lavi brought his hand over his left chest, covering it with his own. It felt so warm. And that rhythmic beating… Kanda could just feel the steady beating of his boyfriend's heart right underneath his palm.

Lavi's smile turned affectionate and tender.

"…you already know what it is, don't you?"

The heat on his face was almost unbearable, and for once, Kanda thought that his room was much too small. Suddenly feeling the need to escape, he tried to slip his hands out of Lavi's but to no avail; the other's grip was too strong. And… maybe Kanda wasn't sure if he really wanted to escape. He nearly gasped when Lavi's grasp tightened and that lopsided grin gracing his features widened.

"I think you need a reminder."

That was all the warning Kanda had before Lavi pounced onto him, and then, as the bed creaked and clothes flew across the room, he could only gasp and moan and hang on for dear life.

No doubt, the pile after pile of hair ties and hair brushes were the furthest things on his mind.

-owari-

**A/N: **Ha ha, I really haven't written in so long, but this idea struck me so suddenly I felt the urge to just write it no matter what. And better still, the idea came to me in Chinese, so I wrote it out in English first, and then wrote a Chinese version of it. XDDD There are minor differences, and personally, I think the Chinese version is sappier and cuter, but that also means that Kanda is more OOC. The Chinese version's only hosted on my locked LJ though.


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